by Lin Carter
His words sounded convincing, and honesty shone in his bland and guileless eyes, but Zoraida eyed him doubtfully. If she were not fully certain that her hero and lover could defend himself against the wiles and traps of Yussef, she would never have conspired with Kairadine's rival.
Privately, she did not trust the rival captain any further than she had to. And, probably, she was right.
"Now you must leave here, O Zoraida," urged the corsair captain. "I believe that my house is being watched-perhaps by that dog of a Moor that serves your master as his first mate-and it's no longer safe for you to come and go here as you please."
"How, then, shall we communicate henceforward?" demanded Zoraida.
Yussef smiled. "Fear not! Nor trouble your lovely little head about that, for Yussef ben Ali has other friends behind the walls of the palace of Kairadine than your exquisite self! Now go, and quickly-and take care not to be seen!"
As the dancer veiled herself and slipped from the room, Yussef fingered his mustache, thinking back over the passionate avowals of love which Zoraida had just made for the man she was betraying. The irony of the situation appealed to his wry sense of humor.
"By Allah," he chuckled, "I thank the saints that no woman loves me as much as Zoraida loves Kairadine!"
Chapter 10 A MYSTERIOUS FRIEND
Darya of Thandar found life in the harem of Kairadine Redbeard at once boring, luxurious, confining,
tedious and lonely. Her suite in the harem wing was sumptuously decorated, a soft and silken nest, and after the hardships and exertions she had endured in recent weeks, the Cro-Magnon girl would not have been human did she not luxuriate in such pleasures as a comfortable bed, delicious, if unfamiliar, foods and hot, soapy baths.
She was lonely because she was kept apart from the other women by Kairadine Redbeard's direct orders.
Burly eunuchs stood beyond her door day and night, permitting no one to enter and refusing to let her leave. The guards had been posted immediately after the scene when Zoraida had burst in upon her and the two had fought together, Zoraida armed with a knife. Kairadine wished no recurrence of that event; hence the eunuchs.
The Princess of Thandar could have enjoyed the luxury of her captivity much more had it not been for the suspense which she endured. True, she was secure from the lusts of the Barbary Prince while the lacerated muscles of his shoulder healed, but-for how long would her present safety continue? The pirate prince was in the full glory of his prime, with the sheer animal vigor of a healthy athlete; erelong, he would be healed enough to claim the object of his desires. It was difficult to estimate just how long that would be ....
Darya spent the listless days and empty nights dreaming of escape. It seemed hopeless to think of getting past the two giant blacks who guarded her door, and the long windows were screened by latticework riveted to the window frames. She might have been able to break through the carven wood lattices with a knife or tool, but none was in her possession. The Barbary Pirates, being more or less true Moslems, did not employ eating utensils, preferring thin wooden rods like those thrust through shish kebab. Those and their bare hands were all the implements they required to down their meals. True, meat was carved with knives, but the meats served to Darya were already carved, and she was never permitted to see a knife.
Escape seemed hopeless.
But Darya had gambled her life on even more hopeless odds before. And won.
Isolated as she was behind the silken barriers of the women's quarters, it still was not unknown to Darya that the pirate kingdom of El-Cazar was in a seething turmoil. Only the strong leadership and heavy hand of Kairadine Redbeard had restrained the reckless and explosive tempers of his corsair chieftains; while he healed in bed, surrounded by a flurry of Arab physicians, plots were brewing, aye, and counterplots, too.
Rumor claimed that Kairadine had been crippled by the yith's bite-that his swordarm was useless. And the Pirate Prince maintained his grip on the precarious throne of El-Cazar only so long as he was strong and vigorous enough to maintain his grip on the hilt of a sword. For it was law in El-Cazar that he could be challenged to a duel at any time by one of chieftainly rank who questioned his abilities to lead his men wisely and to fight at their forefront.
That these rumors had been surreptitiously begun by the wily Yussef ben Ali was suspected by Achmed the Moor, whose suspicions had been aroused by the furtive meetings between Zoraida, the cast-off former love of Kairadine, and his foremost rival. Nothing could be proved, of course, but Achmed resolved to wait, and watch, and listen ....
Darya had begun to learn the language spoken in El-Cazar, or enough of it, at any rate, to piece together the morsels of information that came her way, for slave girls will chatter carelessly, especially when in the company of one believed ignorant of the local language.
The cavegirl soon came to understand that the leadership of the corsairs was divided between five chieftains, each the captain of a galley, who were leagued into the Council of Captains. In matters pertaining to the kingdom, each had a single vote and a simple majority ruled. Hitherto, Kairadine had commanded the loyalty of all but one of these captains, Yussef ben Ali.
Commanding four votes against his one, the wishes of the Redbeard had always carried the day. Until now, that is: for rumors whispered that one of Kairadine's erstwhile supporters, a huge, fat-bellied Algerian called Zodeen, wavered in his loyalties. Whether he had been bribed by wealth from the bulging coffers of Yussef ben Ali, or whether Yussef had something heartily desired by fat Zodeen was a matter of open speculation.
It was known, however, that Zodeen's fancies lay in the direction of prepubescent girls.
It was also known that Yussef had recently come voyaging home from a slave-raiding expedition to the mainland with two exquisite young blonde savage girls.
And even the slaves in the harem, ignorant of reading and writing and arithmetic, could put one and one together, and come up with two ....
The cavegirl adapted swiftly to her new environment, for all that nearly everything about it was strange and unfamiliar to her. She had been reared in her jungle homeland, dwelling in log huts, hunting and fishing for food; here men dwelt in tall stone houses, in a city, no less, governed by laws, not dim traditions and customs, wearing elaborate clothing, not scraps of hide, fighting with keen swords whose employment was an art, almost a science. It was all bewilderingly new to Darya.
But her people, the Cro-Magnons, were as intelligent as are modern men, and as capable of learning new ways. When they had entered into Zanthodon the Underground World during the onset of the Ice Age millennia ago, crawling into fissures in the slopes of the huge volcanic mountain which marked the main entrance to the subterranean cavernworld, they had been men of the Stone Age, crude, violent, simple, ignorant and superstitious.
The continuous struggle for existence here in Zanthodon had called into play whatever imagination and ingenuity they possessed. Single-handedly, they had progressed from out of the Stone Age into the
Bronze Age, teaching themselves by experiment and by trial and error how to extract metal ores from the hills of their jungle land and how to smelt them into ingots of pure metal; further experiment had taught them how to strengthen those metals by the admixture of such ores as copper and tin.
And once you have started on the road of learning there is no turning back. So Darya, daughter of the Bronze Age, must now pit her native cunning and ingenuity against the decadent wits of the Barbary Pirates-to survive.
She soon learned that she had a friend-an unknown and unnamed and very mysterious friend-somewhere in the palace of Kairadine Redbeard.
Another mind than hers was aware of her predicament, of the difficulties she faced in trying to escape from the palace. In order to get through the wooden lattices which covered the tall windows of her apartment, she would require a knife. No other implement would do. The interstices between the wooden slats which comprised the lattice were too narrow fo
r her to be able to insert anything else strong enough to do the trick-a broken chair leg, for instance. No, the cavegirl could only get through the window by cutting through the tough wood with a sharp steel blade.
It was not healthy for the cavegirl to be forever locked up in the dimness of her shuttered room, and she complained of this to those who attended upon her needs. Doubtless those servitors reported her complaints to their superiors, and also the fact that she had become pale and listless and merely toyed with her food these days, rather than tackling her meals with anything like her former gusto.
For soon-under heavy guard, of course-she was permitted a daily stroll in a walled garden adjoining her rooms. Fountains splashed and small ornamental streams meandered over gravel beds, and strange flowers bloomed in a riot of rich colors, filling the humid salt-stung air with their sweetness.
These daily strolls were a boon to the cavegirl-to smell the open air and see again the golden skies of Zanthodon, to feel the wind in her hair and to experience at least the illusion of freedom! It was heady and exhilarating to the Cro-Magnon girl, and she reveled in it.
During one such walk through the gardens, after she had been a prisoner in the island fortress of El-Cazar for somewhat more than two weeks, a curious incident occurred. One of the slave women who customarily shared these garden strolls with Darya, who was protected by her eunuch guards, suddenly and without any warning uttered a piercing scream, clutched at her side, and fell thrashing upon the greensward, long lithe legs kicking as she gasped and squirmed in agony.
All eyes were instantly fastened upon the convulsions which wracked the slave girl. No one was watching Darya.
In that same instant, something wrapped in soft white cloth flew over the garden wall to fall between the small sandaled feet of Darya of Thandar.
Without hesitation, the cavegirl stooped and snatched it from the ground and thrust it into a place of concealment beneath the silken sash which wound about her slender waist.
The stricken slave was helped to her feet, gasping some tale of a sudden pain which had knifed through her-and as she happened to utter this phrase, her dazed eyes, wandering about, chanced to touch upon the gaze of Darya, whereupon-She winked!
The girl, whose momentary pains had now passed, was assisted back into the building. And the walk was ended for this day, as the eunuchs returned Darya to her apartment and locked her within.
With pounding heart the breathless cavegirl suffered an agony of suspense until she had withdrawn the small, slim bundle from its place of concealment in her sash and unwrapped it from its white cloth.
It was a ten-inch dagger, with a blade of cold steel as sharp as any razor!
Thus Darya learned that she had not only a friend within the palace, but, now, a means of leaving!
Part Three
CONQUERORS OF EL-CAZAR
Chapter 11 THE MISSION OF GROND
For weeks the fleet of dugout canoes explored the misty reaches of the underground ocean. There were many rocky isles-some of them mere gaunt crags of naked rock lifting from the foam, others large enough to support vegetation, and a few of sufficient size to house a small village. All must be scouted, if not actually searched.
The trouble was, Tharn of Thandar did not really know what he was looking for. A settlement of some kind, obviously-but how easy was it to find, and what did it look like? If he had been Kairadine Redbeard, called Barbarossa, with many implacable enemies ranged against him, Tharn would have carefully concealed his settlement from chance discovery.
For this reason, the Cro-Magnons must search each island that was large enough to support a village of some nature. Which took time ....
The one thing that made Tharn of Thandar realize that it was only a matter of time before his fleet discovered the whereabouts of El-Cazar, was the ship on which the Barbary Pirates had carried off
Darya and Fumio. Nothing that size can easily be hidden, and while huts may be concealed in thick jungle, or behind hills or mountains, there isn't much you can do to hide a galley the hugeness of the Red Witch.
Before embarking on the voyage, the tribe of Thandar had brought along supplies of food and drinkable water. As these ran low, the hunters brought down sea fowl with their arrows or speared primitive fish with their javelins. The women and children and older people fished, for the seas hereabouts were teeming with the finned and scaly denizens of the deep.
Water, however, became a problem. They were forced ashore to refill their waxed leather water-hides from fresh streams on many of the larger islands. But water was not such a problem as it might have been, for it rained frequently in these parts of Zanthodon and the rain water was easily collected.
About the time the Professor and I were hightailing it out of the Scarlet City of Zar with a furious goddess at our heels, they found El-Cazar.
There could be no mistaking it-those soaring walls and sturdy ramparts were clearly the work of human hands, and if further evidence was required, there lay the Red Witch herself, riding at anchor against a long stone quay built out into the shallows.
But there were other ships as well as Kairadine's galley, five lean warcraft in all. And the fortress city which rose upon its cliff-walled height was densely populous, as the many roofs and towers which could be glimpsed above the ramparts demonstrated.
Tharn had not guessed that his adversaries would be so strong and numerous. And, never having seen or heard of a real city before, he could not have imagined one like El-Cazar. He stood in the bow of his dugout, arms folded upon his mighty breast, staring up at the soaring wall.
And he would not have been human had he not felt a bit intimidated by the stronghold of the Barbary Pirates.
"How will you enter the place of the Men-Who-Ride-Upon-The-Water, O my Omad?" asked one warrior, half-fearfully.
"I do not know," he grunted. "But enter it I will, for enter it I must."
"They will be very many to our few, my Omad," warned one of the veteran warriors in Tharn's personal retinue.
The jungle monarch grunted noncommittally, but made no reply. What the fellow had said was perfectly correct, and Tharn was leader enough to know that what was needed here was not brawn, but brain. No strength that he could summon could burst through those mountainous walls of solid rock, and how could men armed with arrows, daggers, clubs and spears defeat the howling hordes of El-Cazar, with their strange weapons of edged metal?
"We must think and plan," Tharn growled half to himself. "I must take counsel with my chieftains. Let us withdraw to that rocky isle that lies not far off; behind it we can shelter from the eyes of our foes-if indeed they can see us through these accursed mists. There we shall discuss the ways of entering the stone huts of our foe."
Privately, he wondered to himself if this was at all possible.
As with every other problem, time alone would tell.
The majordomo of the household of Yussef ben Ali was a suave, sly and obsequious fellow named
'Dullah. He was mystified, was this 'Dullah, when his master bade him fetch one of the slaves of the house, the young Cro-Magnon, Grond, who had earlier interpreted for Yussef ben Ali the words of Fumio.
Grond was, or had been, a warrior of the Gorthak tribe which inhabited portions of the northern shoreline of the subterranean continent. He had been taken in a slave raid not many months before.
While he was surly and took orders poorly, he did not have the cowed, beaten, half-starved look of many of his fellow slaves. He could easily pass for a free warrior.
Entering the chambers of Yussef ben Ali, he bowed slightly and stood with stern, impassive mien and incurious eyes, awaiting whatever orders should come. Yussef ben Ali looked him over with narrowed, thoughtful eyes; beside him stood the dancing-girl, Zoraida, who also examined Grond. She admired the deep arch of his chest, his broad, muscular shoulders, and the strong thighs of the Cro-Magnon slave.
"Your name is Grond?" inquired Yussef ben Ali in a lazy, dra
wling voice.
"Yes, Master," replied Grond.
"Listen to me carefully, Grond. Moored on the other side of the Isle of Nine Peaks is a tribe of people similar to your kind. They have come hither in a fleet of dugout canoes to invade and conquer El-Cazar."
Grond blinked at this astounding news, but said nothing. Yussef ben Ali paused to drink in a mouthful of perfumed smoke from his nargileh. For a moment there was no sound in the silk-hung chamber but the gurgling of the waterpipe.
"This fact I have discovered for I have posted a watchman in the top of the tallest spire of my house, with a spyglass. He it was who observed, during the past 'sleep,' the cautious approach of the savages."
"And fortunate for you, O Yussef, that it was not the watchmen of Kairadine Redbeard who espied the fleet of canoes," murmured Zoraida. The corsair gave her a languid glance.
"Fortune had nothing to do with it, O Moon of Delight! Only I knew from the lips of the other slave that the tribe from which Kairadine carried off the girl would be hunting her. Kairadine, doubtless, has no suspicion of the fact."
Then he returned his attention to Grond, who stood with stolid indifference as if none of this concerned him, although inwardly his heart was racing with excitement. To escape from El-Cazar was the dream that sustained him in his captivity-that, and the love of a girl of his own tribe, one Jaira, who also served in the house of Yussef ben Ali.
"To continue, Grond: I intend to dispatch you as my ambassador to the savages, as you and they share the same speech. You will dress yourself in these garments," added Yussef, pointing to a carven chest atop which were laid out an abbreviated loincloth of supple fur and high-laced buskins of tanned leather.
With a surly nod, Grond stripped off his present garments and donned those which his master had indicated. Zoraida's eyes were dazzled as she observed the magnificent nakedness of the yellow-haired slave. She had a zest for men, had Zoraida, and she had long been banned from the bed of Kairadine Redbeard.
